There
is a crow sitting on my computer made out of old vinyl records melted
and wrapped around twisted and rusting rebar wire. Scavenged scavenger.
Old things made new. Art. My crow is alive. It hunkers back and resists.
Claims space. His demands are a scratchy old song.

It
is the work of a Central Interior artist: Phil Morrison, whose work
will appear in the next issue. We had a talk today, Phil and I and another
dear friend on the thin ice of his driveway. An urgent hour in the spring
sun. No time to go inside but swept up in a conversation that was melting
our other ices. The politics of Creation and Exhibition. The problems
created by artists' statements. The idea is to get the viewer/reader/audience
to wake up and pay attention. To take each piece of art on its own merits
and learn to ask their own questions of it. To begin a dialogue with
the work that leads to understanding and, once in a while, epiphany.
To do that, the artist must exhibit, publish, read, act, dance, sing,
break out of that invisible box. The dusty pile of poems beside my typewriter
or stored in my computer's memory. The corner of the studio. The rehearsal
hall.

Every
community needs outlets. Doors of perception. Exhibition halls, performance
spaces, magazines, a cafe with a microphone and a hot cup of coffee.
Somewhere the artist can meet the audience. Somewhere communication
can be achieved, understandings come to, and once in a while epiphanies
experienced. To paraphrase the words from a church billboard I passed
last week, "Life is a verb." It is dynamic, constantly changing. Artists
build mirrors but the world moves along relentlessly; combining, growing,
always moving. Our mirrors need to move with it. That means our established
artists need to be constantly renewing themselves and we always need
new artists.

In
the Central Interior, there are not many outlets, not many doors for
audiences to step through. This is relatively new one. The artists in
this on-line journal work to reflect themselves and their community.
Another one is the Tuesday Rites at Books and Company, a series of readings
sponsored by the Federation of BC Writers and Books and Company. It
offers an open stage to writers every Tuesday night from 7 to 8 and
a featured reader from 8 to 9. The featured readers are mostly local
writers though once in a while we hear the voices of other or larger
communities. These season features readers from Prince George, Vanderhoof
and Mackenzie. In mid-May, bill bissett will come in from Toronto to
share his voice. For me, art is about building community. Art allows
us to see ourselves, to place ourselves, to contrast ourselves against
another vision, another story. Outlets like ROW and the Tuesday Rites
provide an opportunity for this.

Support
them. Read. Listen. Don't stop growing. Wake up and sing, like my crow,
in a scratchy old song.